The Seahorse Trust News

Still no seahorses at South Beach (Studland Bay) this year despite so many hours in the water. The seagrass bed is like a desert with little to no life. Not only is it fragmented it the seagrass beyond the leading edge is very short and the scoop marks where the anchors have been are so obvious.

Please help to push this campaign as we need to try and get the authorities to change their minds and the only way to do this is collect data and information about the site. We have been running our Studland Seahorse Project since 2009 and the numbers have just crashed at the same time the seagrass has degraded. It has to be protected in line with international laws and environmental demands. Please dig deep and support our work.
Thank you.

Following on from our success with E-bay in Europe and the USA we are pleased to announce that E-bay have now added Australia to its list of continents that are banned from selling seahorses (alive or dead, in part or as a whole) unless you have a license.

E-bay has followed Australia’s strict conservation laws and has invoked the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act). Under this act a license is required to buy or sell seahorses into or out of Australia.

Here at the trust we fully welcome E-bays stance on this matter and would like to thank them for their hard work in banning sales throughout Europe, the USA and now Australia.

Already the bans have made a big difference and numbers are dropping, however as good as E-bays filters are, sometimes sales get through, so if you see some for sale please let our Illegal trade team know on illegaltrade@theseahorsetrust.orgso they can deal with it.

Dear all, we have a formed a partnership with our colleagues at the Marine Conservation Society and we now have a joint Adopt a Seahorse in addition to our own adopt a seahorse scheme. By working together we can get the message about the plight of seahorses out to a bigger audience and make a difference. The Adopt a Seahorse will provide funds to both organizations so we can carry out conservation, research and education programs to benefit seahorses and the marine environment. Why not sign up to the Adopt a Seahorse for Christmas (at the link below) at it would make a fantastic present and you will be helping seahorses and the environment at the same time.

We recently had a great group of students come to The Seahorse Trust headquarters to interview us about the largest seahorses ever found in the world.

The Seahorse Trust work with students and graduates of all ages throughout the year and this is the 4th year in a row we have taken part in a video. The student work ranges from 3 to 5-year-olds doing a school project all the way up and through to graduates.

This is a great way for them to gain experience and for us to work closely with all ages to get the message out there.

Every year it costs between 45 and 50 thousand pound to run The Seahorse Trust but look what we do with that.

We advise and lobby for Marine Conservation Zones; Studland is now a proposed marine Conservation Zone because of you and with your help it will become fully protected in 2015

We study seahorses in the wild to understand them more so we can help protect them, our work has changed our understanding of seahorses, their behaviour and migration patterns around the world

We have advanced the science of seahorses both in the wild and in captivity through partnership with others

We monitor the curio trade to help stop this horrendous trade (we recently stopped a shop selling 10,000 dead seahorses here in England and we hope they will be prosecuted!!)

We have volunteers watching online shopping sites to stop the trade in dead seahorses, already they have stopped the sale of many hundreds of seahorses

We work in partnership with so many organisations around the world to preserve and conserve the natural environment, from the UK to Spain, Malta to Cambodia and Australia to the Philippines

We help school children understand the world around us; the new conservationists of the future who will be our next ambassadors

We assist graduates in their projects, they go on and make a big difference to the world

We work with and advise governments around the world on how to protect their seahorses

We set up seahorses surveys around the world with partners to gain more knowledge on this amazing species

We share ideas and knowledge with our partners for the good of seahorses and the environment

We advise on captive breeding projects to help preserve the seahorses for future generations by securing populations in captivity and learning how to breed them for eventual release if the populations decline

We talk with the general public on how they can make difference and people power does change things, you have proven that with Studland

Well as you can see the list is endless and this is just small snapshot of what we do and we can do more, so much more with your help.

So please use the power of the pound to make a big difference to the natural world, especially seahorses and the marine environment.

What is the value of a pound, a third of a cup of coffee, a bar of chocolate, a packet of crisps or a tool to change the world !!

Please set up a yearly (or monthly) standing order for one pound (or more) to The Seahorse Trust Bank details on the website; make your pound make a big difference to the future of the natural world.

Send this appeal to everyone you know and ask them to do the same, please make this fund raising appeal go viral; a pound will make a big difference it will literally change the world

This video by Project Seagrass gives every reason why seagrass meadows should be preserved for the future. Please have a look and support the work of The Seahorse Trust in protecting these amazing ecosystems.

Dear all, Jennie one of our fantastic trustees is doing a 10km open water swim on the River Dart in Devon on the 6th of September in aid of The Seahorse Trust. Jennie is one of the many people who work hard behind the scenes to keep the trust in the right direction, she is also an ultra-fit lady and loves doing this sort of challenge (and believe me it is a major very hard challenge). Her page is on Virgin Giving and it can be found below. Please dig deep and help her reach her £500 target and who knows go well above it.

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The Seahorse Trust was set up in 1999 as an umbrella organisation to preserve and conserve the natural world, especially the marine environment using Seahorses as our flagship species. We work in partnership through a Seahorse Alliance with many organisations and people from all over the world and it is this unique partnership that allows us to acheive so much in the conservation of seahorses and their enviornment for the future.